Barn destroyed, home and another building damaged in fire near Canning

There were no injuries when fire destroyed a barn and damaged another and a home in Kings County Sunday night.

Canning firefighters were called to the property on Black Hole Road in Sheffield Mills, about seven km west of Canning, just after 10 p.m. When they arrived they found the two-storey barn engulfed in flames. The glow from the fire could be seen for kilometres.

There were no animals inside the 40-metre long barn, which was used for storage, Canning fire chief Jeff Skaling said. However, there were more than three dozen large round bales of hay in the lower level at the back of the building.

The barn collapsed in on itself early because of the ferocity of the blaze. An excavator was called to pull apart the rubble and hay bales so they could be extinguished.

A second two-storey barn about seven metres from the first also ignited, but fire crews were able to contain that.

“It got inside in the upper floor ceiling area and under the main floor, which was open in the back,” Skaling said. “They made a good stop on that. It blackened a bunch of rafters and the floorboards, but it wasn’t a heavy char.”

The 10-metre by 30-metre building contained several lawnmowers and a ride-on tractor among other items.

The tires on a tractor-trailer near the first barn started to burn, but that vehicle was able to be driven away before the fire spread.

A house that was less than 15 metres from the barn had much of its vinyl siding on the back melt from the heat of the fire, but there was no direct fire damage.

Crews and equipment from six other fire departments were also called to the scene, mostly for tankers to shuttle water from a nearby river.

The last firefighters left the scene the scene at about 3 a.m.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.